By this stage your blog is actually live and you can start blogging immediately. But, most bloggers first take some time to customize their blog with different looks and features to give their blog a unique feel, and make it serve their blogging topic better. Because Wordpress is open source, the Wordpress community has created literally thousands of different themes (pre-set way the blog looks) and addons.
Make Your Blog Look the Way You Want
To customize the appearance of your blog, your first stop is the Wordpress Themes.
This page will list hundreds of completely free themes that you can choose between to change the way your blog looks. Once you’ve chosen one you like, all you have to do is download it, unzip it, and then upload it to your website (more on how to do that in a moment).
Wordpress Plugins
I also recommend you spend some time browsing the Wordpress Plugins page.
Plugins are addons to the Wordpress code that change its functionality — things like dynamic flash photo galleries, polls, allowing people to vote on your posts, and just about anything else you can imagine. Like the themes and Wordpress itself, these are all free.
One plugin that I consider pretty much essential is WP-SpamFree. This plugin does a phenomenal job of completely blocking automated spam programs from posting advertisements in the comments of your blog. Trust me when I say this is a very real problem with popular blogs, and with WP-Spamfree you can just install it and never worry about the spam again.
How to Install Plugins and Themes
In order to upload the themes and plugins to your website you will need a FTP program. Much like the plugins themselves, you can get a FTP program for free — Filezilla has both PC and Mac compatible versions.
Once you have your FTP program, just send it to your website with the login info that you got from Hostmonster (you will need to know your website URL, username, and password). You will want to navigate to public_html folder>wp-content. Upload your theme to the Themes folder, and your plugins to the Plugins folder – pretty straightforward!
When you log into your Wordpress blog you’ll be able to activate your new content from the Themes or Plugins section.
Congratulations!
You now have your own robust, flexible, customizable blog. And setting it up probably took far less time than you spent choosing a domain name and a theme!
4 Responses
September 3rd, 2009 at 12:56 pm
Good call on WP spam free. You really need something to stop the comment spam. This is another reason Wordpress is better than Blogger. You should say that in your wordpres review page.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:52 am
Is there a addon that lets you blow up pictures? I’ve seen it in other sites but don’t know what it is.
September 4th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Ed: I think you’re talking about a flash photo handling addon – so you insert your photo like you normally would with Wordpress, then you can click on it and it expands into a larger version.
The best Wordpress addon I’ve found for that is called Lightbox, which I use in my http://www.stockphotographerblog.com
September 14th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Askimet also helps with spam, though stuff still gets through.
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